Rememberences of Map Contests Past

[B_Munro]

Otherworld:

The assassination of Franz-Ferdinand occurred, but Germany did not go to war with France and did not invade Belgium. Russia, alone, suffered a quick defeat and released the Baltic Duchy. Austria-Hungary also annexed Serbia. In 1916, Polish rebels rose up. Austria-Hungary was reformed and became the United States of Greater Austria. In March 1916, a Republican government came in power. Three months later, a Civil War began, opposing the Russian Republic and the Fascist Leader Alexander Traïvanov.
In 1917, tensions occurred between France and Germany about Alsace-Lorraine. The war seemed to be imminent, but at the Milan Peace Conference, a solution was found : the creation of the Free State of Alsace-Lorraine, a state without army, under a dual personal union with the German Kaiser and the French President.
In 1920, a new war happened in the Balkans. Austria and Greece were the main victorious nations. In Russia, Traïvanov won the war and Russia became the Union of All the Russias. The United Kingdom, scared by the Austro-Germano-French alliance, created tensions between the two systems.
1923 was a very hard year for the people. As a consequence, communists and fascists revolutions happened in Europe. Communists took over Spain, Sardinia, Sicily, Crete, Cyprus and Malta. Fascists or ultra-nationalists took over Poland, Bulgaria, Denmark and Portugal.
Five years later, after a lot of international tensions, the "Regrettable Episode" occurred. The Greatest War was on.

 

[B_Munro]

Mine own:


In this TL, Europe avoided the suicidal blood bath of OTL, thanks in part to
France and Austria joining forces to take the starch out of Prussia before it
got too big for its britches. So, the Long 19th Century continued, and the old
verities were less shaken - and some ugly post-Darwin "verities" if anything
became more firmly established. But there are those who think the Long 19th
has gone on far too long, and a day of reckoning approaches...

 

[B_Munro]

Kalan:

In this World Bismarck drowned on the 22. of August in 1862, during his stay in france as german ambassador and was not saved by a basque townsmen.
Without him the Prussian king Wilhelm I abdicated in favor of his son Frederick III during the constitutional crisis over the reform of the army. The new king was much more liberal than his father and would transform Prussia in a constitutional monarchy.

This liberalisation brought Prussia at odds with the other main power of Germany, Austria. The fact that many german nationalist started to view Frederick as their best chance to unite Germany only exacerrbated the tensions.
Over the following years Prussia would form an alliance with Italy who also had territorial claims against it and also with Russia who was convinced that the Balkan would look much nicer if Austria and the Ottoman Empire would just disapear.
This in turn lead to the formation of the Entente between Austria and France.

As the century ended tensions on the continent were on an all time high and in 1907 the explosian came at last: The bavarian parlament tried to gain additional powers as the prussian had half a century before. However unlike in Prussia the king refused to give in resulting in an uprising against him. When Austria tried to get the german conferderation to move against the new government Prussia blocked their attempt and started to support the new government outright, ignoring an austrian ultimatum not to do so.
Shortly after this Prussia, Italy and Russia were at war with Francem, Austria and the Ottoman empire.
The german confederation was spilt with some states supporting Prussia and some siding with Austria and again other declaring their neutrality.
This neutrality however did not last for long. The french war plans had always assumed that they would quickly size the prussian Rhineland and link up with Austria. When the south german States refused to let the troops trough, Baden was invaded, causing the other states to side with Prussia.

Of course one can always make a war bigger: Reaussured by the British failure to do anything during the outbreak of the war France decided to enact a blockade against Prussia depriving it of nitrate imports and consequently gunpower.

Great Britain may have seen no reason to abandon its spledid isolation over a continental war, but French ships sailing through the chanal and establishing a blockade in the north sea was a different matter. An ultimatum demanding the retreat of all french ships from the north sea was delivered.
Unwilling to back down and loose face France refused and the first world war had begun.

The first months of the war saw huge movments. Italy finally was abel to conquer the Papal state (without the Franco-Prussian war Napolean III never withdrew his troops) and liberated Venetia, but from there on the war became literally an uphill struggle at the slopes of the alps.
France concquered the Rhine valley only to be stopped at the black forest.
The Prussians had planed to rapidly advance over the ore mountains into bohemia and the to vienna, knocking Austria out of the war. The first part of the plan worked fine, but someone had forgot that south of bohemia there was another mountain range.
Most of the small german States were conquered by Prussia.
Russia rapidly conquered Galicia but was soon distracted by an uprising in Poland, while the attack into Anatolia quickly was stopped by the ottomans.
In the Balkans the Austrians and Ottomans managed to conquer Serbia but failed to make gains against Romania.

As the winter came all fronts settled into trench warfare which would remain for the next three years.
The colonies on the other hand saw more action has the british and french moved against each other. The massive use of colonial troops in those theaters is thought to have greatly contributed to the developments of independece movements after the great war.

 

[B_Munro]

Blomma came in waaay in front in first, Otherworld came in second, and I took third.

Bruce

 

[B_Munro]

Hokay - ciao until April!

Bruce

 

[B_Munro]

MoTF 53: The Benevolent Co-Prosperity Sphere

The Challenge
Your challenge is to make a map depicting a world where a former regional underdog has gained the upper hand and is now imposing its will on its weaker neighbours. Your map must show how this former backwater is changing its newly forged empire to better suit its needs/desires in some way - mass deportations of natives, ethnic cleansing, changing placenames to suit their language, destruction of native cultural artefacts and sites, etc.


The Restrictions
Your map must show the effects of the conquering nation's imperialist policy in its newly conquered territories. Your map may be set during the reign of the conquering nation, or you may show the evidence of imperialism after the fall of the empire.

ASB maps and future maps are not allowed. The map and your PoD may both be set at any point in history prior to the modern day.

The conquering nation/former underdog in your map must have been a relatively weak or unstable nation compared to its neighbours at one point in the past for a significant amount of time, and now must be one of if not the most powerful country in the region.

 

[B_Munro]

Kaiphranos:

The Kingdom of Kongo was one of the few nations that managed to avoid European colonialism; a series of smart and fortunate kings managed to play off the English, French, Portuguese, and Dutch against one another, while taking over several of Kongo's weaker neighbors.

Does this mean that Central Africa is a shiny, happy place in this timeline? Unfortunately not. Part of Kongo's strategy for retaining its independence was to be too valuable for any one European power to be allowed to seize, and so the kings of Kongo ended up paying for their freedom with all the resources at their disposal--gold, ivory, copper, diamonds, and even their own people, until the end of the slave trade. As the 19th and 20th centuries progressed, Kongo began to develop its own industries, and with the European nations distracted by wars at home, Kongo emerged as a regional power of its own. A timely declaration of war gave the Kongolese an opportunity to snap up some territories in the interior during the subsequent peace conference. These new territories, dubbed "special resource zones," are being ruthlessly exploited in an attempt to cement Kongo's status as an industrial power. Likewise, "Kongolese Catholicism" is being imposed at bayonet-point throughout the empire, with Muslims, followers of traditional religions, and Protestant converts and missionaries being targets for violence.

 

[B_Munro]

Future8:

No one ever thought that the Kingdom of Morocco would ever be able to gain the regional superiority they had before the Scramble for Africa. Being colonized by four different nations at once and a final invasion from Italy during World War II left the country drained of its resources. In fact, there were even rumors that its neighboring countries would invade it and annex a few regions.

In 1972, 25 years after its independence, the exact opposite happened. Morocco invaded Algeria and Mauritania, annexing the Algerian provinces of Tindouf, Bechar, Naama, Tlemcen, Sidi bel Abbes, and Ain Timochent, as well as Mauritanian regions of Tiris Zemmour, Dakhlet Nouadhibou and Inchiri, thus nearly doubling the size of the country. They also set up puppet Alaouite kingdoms in Algeria and Mauritania.

The Gibraltar War against Francoist Spain earned them Ceuta, Melilla, Cadiz, Malaga, the Canary Islands and Gibraltar, which was gained by Spain after the 1967 referendum. Morocco then purchased Madeira from Portugal, thus achieving their current size. Morocco then created the Northwest African Community, of which it is basically the boss, thus giving the country more regional control.

 

[B_Munro]

Tom Thumb:

My entry

Year is 1840

Macedonia rose to power in 1700s after a nationalist revolt. They kicked the Ottomans out of Europe and set up several vassal states.

 

[B_Munro]

Mine own:

The most successfully modernizing of the independent Indian states, Vijayangara, had unfortunately come under the political control of a ferocious Hindu-nationalist party, that dreamed of unifying all Hindu India under their rule and expelling such foreign influences as Islam and the European powers which had carved out footholds throughout the North of the Subcontinent. Given an opportunity by the ravaging of Europe in the Technocracy Wars, the armies of Vijayangara surge north. Now, in 1913, after a pause for consolidation, Vijayangaran troops invade the Sultanate of Bihar. Troops enter from the north, as well: with or without the Sultan's permission, the Rajputs and the shrunken but still fairly formidable Khanate of Ind march forth to stop the floodtide from the south: although the Rajputs are fellow Hindus, they have no interest in having the Serpent Empire as a neighbor - much less an overlord.

Will the armies of Vijayangara be stopped by the brave but admittedly more backwards warriors of the north? Will the Sultan-Caliph, angered at the persecution of Muslims, join in against the invaders? What will happen when the struggles in Europe and the Americas come to some sort of conclusion? Nobody knows what their Karma will bring in the end...

Bruce

PS - the Rajah of Ranchi really doesn't like being called the Ranchi Rajah, just so you know.

 

[B_Munro]

Not too many maps that time. Future8 won, with Kaiphranos in second and myself third.

 

[B_Munro]

MoTF 54: If I Ran the Zoo

The Challenge
Your challenge is to make a map depicting the ideal world of a historical figure.


The Restrictions
As your entries will not be permitting actual history, but someone's ideal world, ASB is allowed, as is future history. The historical figure whose ideal world you're making must be a real person from OTL - not a historical figure from an alternate timeline or from a future timeline.

You may make a map only of a region or one country in your historical figure's ideal world if you wish.

 

[B_Munro]

Petros >Peter Fergus<:

A sketch of the long term goals of Gamal Abdel Nasser for his United Arab Republic, as told to an secret Mossad agent in
his inner circle, and relayed to Tel Aviv. The time is immediately following the Six Days War, after a promising telephone
conversation with King Hussein of Jordan.

Of course, he had no way to predict the destabilising influence of the fedayeen, or that the Israeli's were close to having a
functioning nuclear deterrent.

A demilitarised, quarantined and probably occupied rump Jewish state is located in the northwestern section of the '47
borders, while the lower portion is promised to the Jordanian Kingdom within the Republic.

As incentives to Iraqi leadership, they are to be promised the full backing of the UAR in reclaiming Kuwait. And a friendly
regime is to be put in place in Saudi Arabia, if at all possible.

At the same time, friendly relations are to be sought with Libya, Turkey and Iran, with formal arrangements on a reasonable
timescale.

 

[B_Munro]

Martin23230:

This is based on the plans of Józef Piłsudski for the Intermarium, or Międzymorze in Polish, a federation in Eastern Europe to counter the powers of Germany and Russia. Being his dream idea there isn't a specific PoD behind this map, basically the idea for the federation between Poland and other Eastern European countries occurs, there is a war in the 20s against Russia forfilling Piłsudski's other idea, Prometheism, the freeing of the nations under the Russian yoke.

I've wanted to do this map for a while, especially after making a flag some months ago that I didn't manage to work into it.

Map after the break:
__________________

 

[B_Munro]

Map it!!

 

[B_Munro]

Blomma:

Mannerheim's version of Suursuomi (Greater Finland) during the Continuation War. The text reads "Fight for victory! Let Greater Finland become a reality!". Large letters is Finnish, small letters is Swedish due to the bilingual situation in Finland.

 

[B_Munro]

Future8:

Kingdom of Arabia
"King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia wished from his childhood of an Islamic kingdom in Arabia that would be a paradise for all Muslims.

The country would be modernized, Islamic, and rich all at the same time. There would be no beggars crowding the streets, electricity throughout the country, and greenery overflowing the Kingdom.

Of course, King Abdullah knew that this was wishful thinking, and that it would never happen, but a king can dream, can't he?"

 

[B_Munro]

Mine own:
Just something relatively quick and dirty...

 

[B_Munro]

Alex Richards:

Sir Thomas More's theoretical reorganisation of England along Utopic ideals, much like
the original volume itself, is something of a political caprice, and clearly was not thought of
as the ideal expression of said principles within the land of Britain.

Nonetheless, it is still clear that much of More's opinions on politics can be found within the detail of the idea,
particularly in what appears to modern eyes to be the curiously opposing principles of state supplied healthcare and
education at the Parish level, state supplied higher education and open, well stocked libraries at the shire level
and a current of democracy in the form of elected officials and an elected monarchy throughout the realm,
but with many offenses punishable by a form of slavery in which the individual was not only marked from
his peers in a manner similar to that employed in the Third Reich, but banned from migration
beyond the county of his servitude or from the removal or exchange of said symbols on pain of death.

Women, of course, do not appear to have been given much thought by More, and so we cannot tell
much of their role in this society, asides from the fact that each household of 10 people had an elder woman
who was seen as the equivelent head of the females of the family
as the oldest man was to the males.

 

[B_Munro]

Mumby:

Catham's America
In 1775, the two sides sat down and discussed their options. William Pitt the Elder pulled out a plan which kept the Thirteen Colonies in the Empire, and brought them to the fore. Rotten boroughs were abolished and their seats replaced with new American seats. Each province was given a set number of seats to be filled by each province's assembly however they saw fit. In return, provincial autonomy would be retained, new colonies forged in the west, and trade-strangling tarrifs and regulations removed. In return the Americans would pay the same rate of tax as any other Britons.

By 1791, America is treated as very much an extension of Great Britain in the continent of the Americas. Americans mingle across borders and Britons pour in from the mother country, forging the disparate former colonies into a strong federacy within the Kingdom.